Catholicism, Character, and the Invention of the Liberal Novel Tradition

Abstract

Although it was surprising to find such an uncompromising attack on sincerity in the writing of a novelist known for her interests in existentialism-one of Murdoch's earliest books was a short monograph on Sartre-we find a comparable attack on liberal dogma in the work of the card-carrying liberal humanist Angus Wilson.Wilson too, in the liberated 1960s, complained that English fiction was too much concerned with right and wrong, and not enough with evil (Evil 3). For Wilson, the English novel had rejected the metaphysical and used socially acceptable behavior (right and wrong) as its only moral benchmark. He predictably came under attack from his fellow humanists, who felt that a Grand Old Man of English Letters was letting the side down. Ironically,